The Dave Pasch Podcast - Kevin Clark

and podcaster at The Ringer. He's the host of the Slow Newsday video podcast. He's great to talk about for NFL, for college football, and he was like us, in shock over what we saw Sunday in Vegas and in particular what Kyler Murray did against the Raiders. When you see a comeback like that, you understand how valuable Kyler Murray's to the franchise and how much he can do on a game to game basis, to where not only is no game out of reach, but no play is out

of reach. That's a special talent. Kevin will also talk about the forty nine ers, his thoughts on Jimmy Garoppolo and what this means for Cardinal fans and other teams in the NFC. He'll break down the Packers and some of the other teams in the NFL. We'll also talk about what's going on at Arizona State with the departure of Herm Edwards and who could be next as the head coach of the Sun Devils. We are presented by BETMGM, the official sports betting partner of the Arizona Cardinals, and

by Hila River Resorts and Casinos. Get ready for a football season like never before with bet MGM, an official partner of the Arizona Cardinals. Sign up today using code cards one thousand and get your first bet risk free up to one thousand dollars. Visit betmgm dot com for terms and conditions twenty one and over Arizona only. Please gamble responsibly. Gamily problem called one eight hundred. Next step.

All right, now, let's hear from our guests. From the ringer, Kevin clark Well, Kevin, first of all, you have a hard act to follow, because our guest last week, Damian Lillard of the Portland Trailblazers, brought the Cardinals some incredible luck if you can top this, or maybe let's have it, so there's no need for the comeback. We'll just take a big win over the Rams this Sundays at work. That's a big one. The Rams are a lot better

team than the Raiders. But no, that's I'm I'm happy to bring the juice and happy to bring the luck to Arizona. So this is the first time you and I have actually talked. I think I don't believe we have met, but I'm a big so I'm a big fan. You do a great job. That's one of the reasons I want to have you on. I really enjoy your work, whether it's your columns or the podcasting. All the stuff

you do is great. And you've got like one hundred and twenty five thousand followers, so you have quite the following on social media, and I've heard you on other platforms. Tell our listeners primarily most of the people listening are Cardinal fans, So tell our listeners a little bit about your background, how you got to where you are, because I think you're only in your earlier mid thirties. You graduated from Miami right in twenty ten. I did yep, yep.

So I we're going to company called The Ringer Rome by Spotify, and that means we kind of do everything, Davis. You know, I guess we all do everything now in media. Nobody's just a writer, nobody's just a podcaster or a broadcaster. Um and So I started at the Wall Street Journal right out of college. We wrote a bunch on the Cardinals. UM social day in the Bruce Arian days. Uh you know, well I was sat the first time I ever went there.

I remember a Dave. I don't know if you're around for it, but it was when they had so Bruce had got had Tom Moore on staff, and he had had a had a defensive line coach who had coached in Super Bowl one. This is twenty thirteen, okay, and and so so Bruce had assembled all of these guys who just you know, he wanted them to mentor his younger coaches. Um. You think about all the all the great talent on that staff back then, um in the kind of the first any run of the Cardinals at

the beginning of the last decade. UM and So I worked to the Wall Street Journal and then got hired by the Ringer and I just I just kind of cover the league as a whole um, you know, and it's it's as fun as anything because there's so many different ways to podcast, videocast. You know, you're gonna have

Scott Vanpel on my video show tomorrow. Like it's such a cool era for media because you can kind of create whatever, and you have athletes like Tyler Murray who get it on all platforms and and and are interesting and it's just a fascinating time in the media. Well, you mentioned the staff that BA put together when he got here. This is my twenty first year, so I've

seen quite a few coaches come through here. When I got here, mean, Joe Green was an assistant on the staff, and the following year, Emmett Smith was an Arizona Cardinal. I mean people forget, yeah, that Emmett was here with the Cardinals. Um, so you're you're doing mostly NFL, but I do see you tweeting on college sports as well, So I want to hit on that, especially with locally anyway here the news with Arizona State. I just happened

to be doing Arizona State Utah this Saturday. So a lot going on there, a lot to talk about obviously with her edwards being let go or not let go, depending on how you read the press release, right, we've got to I think I've a pretty good idea what happened there. Yeah, me too, But we've got to figure that out and pass through it all at ESPN to make sure we, you know, say it the right way journalistically on Saturday night. What were your thoughts though when

you're watching the game on Sunday? First of all, what were your thoughts at halftime when it was twenty to nothing? Because my thoughts were, my, goodness, this feels like last week, which feels like last year, which feels like a losing season. I think, you know, bab, you've been around from your team for two decades. You can lose the season pretty easily. And I think I'm staring at that. And I watched that that first sat pretty closely because I just wanted

to see how they played Davanta Adams. By the way they did it actually a nicer job than the Chargers did a week before, and a lot of those in the Adams routes. But I was watching that game and when I saw it was twenty and nothing, I just started to say, here we go. Again, which I'm sure a lot of Cardinals fans thought, maybe some of the players,

maybe the staff of diffront office. I mean, there's just a I feel like there was there was a way that game could have gone that was created a lot of pessimism, and the good news is the comeback was frankly astounding to the point that you see what Kyler Murray is capable of. And when you get the type of contract Kyler has gotten, you know, one of the things that I always wonder and I don't think you know, you think about all of the huge, mega contracts they

were going around with quarterbacks. Now, not all of them create value. Some of them are just like good enough to play quarterback, and you know, and we're gonna give him twenty five million dollars or thirty million dollars a year because he's there, right, you're kind of stuck there.

I mean, that was always the kind of Andy Dalton problem right in Cincinnati, which is you got to pay a guy twenty five million dollars up the kaplan, maybe you should have just rolled it over and gotten a rookie contractor or at quarterback, you know, going forward, So when you see a comeback like that, and I didn't

ever think Kyler was in that bucket. But when you see a comeback like that, you understand how valuable Kyler Murray is to the franchise and how much he can do on a game to game basis, to where not only is no game out of reach, but no play is out of reach. I mean, how many games, how many plays in the game yesterday did you see and say, Okay, this one's over and then Kyler made it happen. That's

a special talent And I don't listen. I don't think he's ready to be a kind of top ten, you know, super Bowl level of talent, but he the path is a lot shorter than people think. And I think that there's been an extremely weird narrative around him, especially since the second half of last season. But I think we're starting to see and if he didn't think this, you do now. Kyler is a special, special guy who's worth the money and worth the attack. Interview got when when

he got into this a few years ago. Day. So you have on a lot of players, coaches. You mentioned you have SVP on, so you're constantly talking to people that are dialed into the NFL in your opinion, and do you think that others would share this opinion? Did what happened yesterday? Is that enough to flip a season, to flip a franchise, because it's not just a play that could turn around this season. It can turn around

all the bad narrative from last year as well. I mean, so much of that has to do with this this week, because what how do you how do you measure up against the Rams, who are not only the class of of the division, but the class of the NFL. Um that to me, it is fascinating. There was now a stat I saw, Um, then you have obviously the Panthers, after that, the Eagles after that, Seahawks stains, but there's some winnable games in that stretch day. There was a

stat I saw yesterday. There was astounding that that I think that the Cardinals have won like eighth straighte games, have won outright eighth right games when they're a road underdog. They're a team that has the mentality that is really fascinating to me. They can go in and win places that maybe other teams can and so obviously they've got the home game against the Rams, but then they go on the road a lot in October and November against some pretty interesting teams, and I think that they can.

They were a playoff team a year ago. They had the talent to do this. Like I think that, as I said earlier, the Vibes were heading in a bad direction, that they lose that game yesterday, But I completely agree with you that this is set up for maybe a better season than we thought. And it all comes down to that half. The last time the Cardinals saw the Rams,

it was ugly. I was there, and it was Even though the Cardinals played poorly down the stretch in the regular season, it went to another level in the postseason. It was just an outright disaster on a lot of levels. But early last season the Cardinals, people forget nominated the Rams. It was one of the worst games the Rams played all year. Aaron Donald was completely shut down. They could do nothing against the Cardinals. Now, again, that was a

year ago. So much has changed since then. How do you look at this matchup because what I've seen from the Rams so far is similar to last year because the Rams got hot in the postseason. It came down to week the final week of the season. The Cardinals had to lose at home and the Rams had to win for them to win the division. Things might have changed if the Cardinals win that final game of the regular season. So do you view the Rams kind of the same or do you think they're better this year

than they were in the regular season last year? No, I mean, I listen that first game with the Rams was certainly concerning that with the Bills. But well, I'll say about the Rams, is I think that And this happens a lot of the time where a team will make a run in January and exactly what you're saying, we kind of reverse engineer that they were the best team the entire time as long as they're you talked about in the national media is good and all that stuff.

And I have a good coach, have a good quarterback. And essentially because I did a piece on Matt Lafleur a couple of weeks ago, Dave, and one of the things that Sean McVay told Matt Lafleur is that he views the playoffs like March madness. And what he means by that is it's not the best team that wins, it's the best team that wins over a three hour space, right, And so he started to engineer, like, how do I

mac McVay, how do I maximize those three hours? Because it's not about October, it's not about November fifth, it's about January tenth. And so I think the way McVey started to view the postseason helps him. Last year. I don't think you know, in the regular season, we saw the Cardinals and the Rams were not that far off, and so this is about I think that playoff experience is its own beast. I think that the Cardinals obviously got their doors blown off in that in that spot

last time I played the Rams. But I think that that just comes from experience, not just just Cliff Kingsbury at the NFL level, but Kyler Murray getting those represent I mean not you have to be a special special team in order to make a deep run on the playoffs is not any playoff experience. It's a completely different beast, especially with the expanded playoffs. It's just different. And I

think a guy like Sean McVey understood that. I mean, by the way, that's why you go out and get Matthew Stafford because you understand how much talent it takes once you get to the final four, once you get to the final two in the conference. You know that, That to me is understanding the barrier for entry. And so a team like the Cardinals, great quarterback, a lot

of talent all over the place. What they need to do over the next two or three years become a super Bowl team is to do those kind of big swings. But I don't think on any given on a week to week basis that there's some huge gap between the Cardinals and the rest of division. I was like an idiot Dave last year when I think I went on Calvert and I was just joking about. I was like, man, you know, prais the Cliff Kings because she's got the

NFCU West to deal with. Meanwhile, I didn't know that they they had to deal with the Cardinals, you know. And so I've already learned my lesson on that stuff as far as saying, oh, you know, the Cardinals can hang with these teams. They can hang with it, and a lot of it has to deal with the quarterback and the roster. You bring up an interesting point about the postseason, because we can say all we want that it is different than the regular season. It is its

own animal. But till you're in the middle of it. Maybe you don't realize that, and that I think had a lot to do with what happened last year. For a lot of people that are members of the Cardinals, it's a young roster in twenty twenty one, it's Kyler Murray's first postseason game. It's different than college football, it's different than high school obviously. It's just you cannot possibly

prepare mentally for what that's like. Do you think having gone through that and then what Kyler did on Sunday the comeback? There were some games last year and even going back to his rookie year, where the Cardinals would come back, but usually the game went how it started. If Kyler played great early on, the Cardinals usually won the game. If the Cardinals struggled offensively early on and got behind, they usually didn't win the game. It feels

like they took this big step. So I'm kind of jumping around here talking about the postseason last year in Week two this year, But do you see a correlation maybe to a young quarterback growing so when the opportunity presents itself again, just like a different Matthew Stafford. After losing those playoff games in Detroit, He's better suited to have success. Yeah, I mean you think about it. The answer is yes. The big overarching answer is yes, Well

you think about it. It's so many little things. How do you rest on a playoff week? When do you step on the gas? When do you knock? Do you go full pads Wednesday or Thursday or both? You know, I mean stuff like that, because you know, you're basically all the rules were set, all the practice rules buncharted waters. Are you a betteran team or a young team? There's so many different things, and so I think Dick listening last playoff game for the Cardinals was a complete disaster.

The entire national picture looked at that media whomever and said, this is bad. Something's got to change, right. But I do think there's a case to be made kind of like what we're talking about, where it can only go up because they understand what this is about, and they understand the team. Like the Rams has been there many different times and upgraded the talent and kind of got above the barrier for enter to be a super Bowl type team. The Cardinals understand what that looks like. You know,

there's been a lot of discussion about the extensions. Obviously they were handed out before the Kyler murray, before the mc murray contract, But at least the Cardinals know what they are for the next few years and then they can go from there. So I think that this structure making the playoffs, like I do, think at some point you're going to break through and make a run because you understand what it's all about and you got the

quarterback to do it. When you look at Sean McVay, in your opinion, what's the secret sauce to his success? Because I've talked to so many people, whether it's coaches or players, former players that played for Sean McVay, or current players that played for Sean McVay when he was an assistant coach, and everybody says, we always knew, we

always knew that he was going to have success. And sometimes, you know, you talked to coaches about a particularly successful coach and they'll say, well, Phil Jackson, for example in the NBA, people say, well, look you had Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, but still all those championships. There's something you're doing right besides just having talents. So what do you think it is with Sean McVeigh. I think a

couple of things. Number one is that players buy them when they know they're going to make plays and be put in position to win, right, And so that that's number one. Number two is I think there's a leadership element to it that I think goes overlooked, and I think the people did see Sean McVey is this guy in a lab coming up with man beaters. And it's it's not that it's not just the plays, it's understanding

his roster really well. It's passion. Um, you know, I mean, like just just something as little as I asked to talk to him for the Matt before piece and he was on the phone with me twelve hours later, um, and and just so excited it talked about Matt And you know, one of the funny things was he was laying it on a little thick game where he was saying, you know, I don't I didn't. I didn't teach Matt anything. Because I said, hey, hey, did you uh you know what what he what did Matt take from me that

you now see you on the field. He's like, I didn't, I didn't teach Matt anything. He taught me. You know. It's that kind of stuff. And there's this there's this compassion, there's this human element um where he's just like just a good person. I think that that that's the read I get from it. The guys want to be around him, guys want to play for him, um, and so it

all fits together. And i'd also say that he opens up his football world to his assistance and I think he learned that a little bit from Kylie Shanahan as well. And I think you see the kind of Shanahan McVay tree have success, not just because play action and all that stuff just helps and maximize is your value on a football field, and there's certain concepts that just really work against modern defenses. There's that, But on the other hand, they just understand what it means to be a head

coach very early because you've heard stories. You know, everybody in New England is pretty siloed and they don't necessarily learn everything that Bill Belichick has to offer. Because of that, the McVeigh tree is that is way more open, way more honest, I would say, amongst the group. And so you're seeing just it's a different vibe in Los Angeles and people want to be there. And then once that happens,

everything starts to build on itself. You know, Kevin Demoff, who's basically their team president without the title, said to me one time that the best kind of inefficiency or the best competitive advantage is the way you put it is winning, because once you start winning, people just say, hey, I'll actually take the million and a half dollar contract to play here instead of the five million dollar contract to play in Jacksonville. Whatever it is, right, And that's

we're seeing. We're seeing this set up now in Los Angeles where it's becoming a bit of a machine because people are attracted to it and will take less money, and then that just keeps on building. Kevin. Looking at some of the other interesting stories in the NFL. In the NFC West San Francisco, I am more fearful now with the forty nine ers that Jimmy Garoppolo is back under center, just because every move that John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan made in the last month and a half

screamed we don't trust Trey Lance. And that's unfortunate what happened to him. You hate it to see a guy go down like that and lose this whole season. But I think the forty nine ers are going to be better because of it, given Jimmy G's previous success. Not saying he's Patrick Mahomes, but this guy's been to a super Bowl, been to an NFC Championship game? Am I right? Should should Cardinal fans be more fearful of the forty nine ers right now? One hundred percent? You are correct.

I mean that the entire last month, I mean bringing Meg even back in the first place, all to talk about sort of a I wouldn't call a locker room descent,

because I don't think there was any of that. But there was a report that basically Kyle and John Lynch should ask the veterans and the locker room to have trades back because they knew how popular Jimmy was, and there was it seemed like there was a lot of requests for buying when I think people probably knew that the best chance to win in week one or week

two was with Jimmy Garoppolo. And so you don't go through that process, you don't go to that learning curve, you don't do anything, and now what you what you're left with is an NFC Championship caliber team. They almost won this time in January. The last season and there's nothing they have to press the reset button on. This is a dangerous team with a good coach and a

quarterback and said run the offense. Listen. John Lynch was in our, Kyle Shanahan was in Peter Things column today basically saying, listen, they they've lost They're starting quarterback four out of the last six years. Most of the time that was Jimmy. But if Jimmy can stay healthy, the ceiling is really high. It's always been a question of health. And so if he could finish the season, I get

a division contending team, the Green Bay Packers. You just touched on that you had spoken recently with Matt Laflour did a piece on him, who without Davante Adams, are they as good as they were last year? And did you get any insight into why they continue to struggle in the postseason, especially at home? Hey, they asked themselves that question all the time. I mean, it's so funny because you know, there's haven't been around sports so long.

There's so many teams that won three or four championships in a row, or made three or four championships in a row, and one two of them, where if you

just go back six months before the first title. They're all these stories now they can't win the big one right where they can't break through Like this happens all the time in sports, and it's true until you don't you know that McVeigh rams probably left a ring or two on the on the table if you're just looking at look at up from three thou thirty thousand feet m But I think that with the Packers, at some point, I think this will be the year they will break through.

And I don't think they know why they struggle. I think a little bit of it is, you know, it's a lot of coaches who are familiar with Matt Lafleur understand the offense. Aaron Rodgers in the cold, he says it's an advantage, but is a play calling and vis the offense kind of had that advantage still when it's

five degrees or whatever it is. Obviously the special team is mistakes last year were unbelievable and they went out and upgraded that and so Rich Bapaccia being there is a huge, huge, huge upgrade in Green Bay, and so I don't know why they struggle with Davante Adams in particular, fishing because I think they're going to run the ball more. We saw that last night. Lafleur basically hinted at it

when we had our long talk. But Aaron Rodgers said he thought that over the course of the season is going to be a similar amount of targets, a similar amount of passes. And the reason the offense was built around Davante Adams, he said, is because he was open eighty percent of the time. So the offense both through an eighty percent of the time. It wasn't like, hey,

we have to have all these plays for Davante. It was more like Davante's open, it'd be stupid to go to Alan was art on the other side, So I think that they have a faith Eventually, some of those guys have been open, whether it's Romeo Dobbs, Christian Watson, obviously album was artists still there but working through injury, those guys will get up to speed over the course of the year, and I think I frankly, by January, I think the Super Bowl favorites. Wow, okay, good stuff

on that. I'm thankful the Cardinals don't play them this year. Obviously the game last year was phenomenal, but the ending unfortunate Cardinals had a chance to win that game. We all remember what happened. You've got the Giants at two and oh and the Dolphins at two and which team is for real or is it both or neither? I'd rather, frankly, I would rather be the Dolphins and the Giants right now. On the other hand, for the twenty twenty two season. On the other hand, anything the Giants do is a

pleasant surprise. And what I mean by that is I spent a lot of time reporting around the Buffalo Bills, where Joe Shane and Brian Daboll came from. They used the first two seasons from a roster standpoint as kind of a wash, and they took i think after the first season, and they took the biggest deadcap charge in the history of football in order to get some of

those contracts off the books to start rebuilding. And so one of the reasons I thought that maybe I wasn't going to pick the Giants this year was because I thought, maybe, if they don't have expectations, why should I have expectations. The fact that they're having success now suggests that there might be as long as they hit on the quarterback eventually kind of a Buffalo like set up there where

they start winning. There's a foundation and then they start adding the pieces and kind of doing the retool and the rebuild, whatever you want to call it. So I'd rather be maybe the Giants as franchise over the next ten years. Having said that, this Dolphins team is talented there. I think there makes playoffs this year. They're talented. Michael Daniel was an awesome coach. You can scheam them up. There's probably more i'd say, high end players in that

roster than we give her credit for. I think because of the last few years with the two weird miss and Ryan Fitzpatrick and some of those other problems that there wasn't you know, Jalen Wile and Tyreek Hill are two of the best receivers in football. The line has at least improved where two look can stand up there.

They're defensive players like Byron Jones Davier. I mean, you think about even a guy like Javon Holland, like those are top, top tier guys, and so I'm not surprised at all the mic the game was able to have

the team looking like a ten win team. The joy of the season any team right now that's struggling that you see turning it around and being in the championship conversation at the end of the year, or do you think what we've seen through two weeks is is going to be what we see for the most part this season. I mean the Bengals, I don't know what you do with the Bengals right now, and Lyle Cowins looked like,

I don't I don't want to do that. Herbally here he looks like one of the worst players in football, Like he's letting guys, let Michael Parsons just around him all the time. I know Michael Parson is one of the best players in football, but he couldn't do anything yesterday to the point that I don't know if you saw, but Joe looked at Zach Taylor and said, don't don't put me an empty anymore between basically like give me more blockers. And for a guy like Joe Burrow to

say that is really rare. I've spent a lot of time down in Cincinnati and some time with Joe. He loves getting guys out into a route and he's ready to take an extra hit because of it. The idea that he would ask for more blockers. I'm don't quote me on this, but I doubt that's ever happened. Frankly, when you talk to him with the coaching and you talk to Joe Burrow how much he loves those empty sets,

and so I don't know what you do there. But if that gets fixed, the defense is playing well enough, I think that they'll be kind of there in mid January. I just think that, you know, it's such a huge problem from a franchise standpoint, Dave, if you think you fix something like the Bengals offensive line and you didn't, and to invest those resources, and man, it's they can get ugly real fast there. So I see a tweeting often about college football, could probably ask you anything about

college football. But again, most of people listening here are Cardinal fans, So I think everybody's kind of curious what's next for Arizona State. Do you have somebody in mind you think that Arizona State should look at because everything I've read, it's a combination of college coaches and NFL coaches. Head coaches, Like I don't see anybody tweeting or writing about, you know, a current coordinator at another college it's all. It's like big names too, and I'm not sure that

Arizona State is going to attract that name. Okay, So let's say a step back here. So I saw a recruiting because I'm from Florida and that's kind of what we do. And it's interesting because if you look at the trends, the population trends, in the last ten years, Arizona and probably North Carolina you'd put in this bucket too, have gotten more blue chip recruits than a lot of

other things. And what I mean by that is it just seems like the number of four and five stars in Arizona, North Carolina, a little bit of Virginia too, that number is increasing because there's a lot of people moving from Los Angeles, a lot of people are moving from San Francisco, and I'm sure you see it, you know, weekly when when you're in the valley there. And so I think that the high school football in Arizona has gotten appreciably better, and I think pretty much everybody agrees

with that in college football. So I think what you do if you're Arizona State is you get a god tier recruiter and just start getting those guys home and I don't know who that could be. Necessarily. I mean, Miami solved the problem with Mario christ Ball because you know, every kid who was from Fort Lauderdale or Miami decided to go out and and go play for Nick Saban

or Kirby Smart. That had to stop. I think, if you just get the guys who are from the Phoenix area, you're a PAC twelve contender every single year, especially once USC leaves. And so I don't know what that what that looks like. I would not go with a retread like a Brian Harrison type. I saw Dan Maulan linked there today. Dan Mullen didn't want to recruit of Florida all of a sudden, He's going to recruit at Arizona State. Um, I would just go out and find the best recruiter available.

I wouldn't. I certainly wouldn't go for for an Urban Meyer type. Right trying stat I mean what about listen and what's not speculated on jobs that aren't open? But what about a Matt Rule. Um, you know, I don't know if he's going to get I don't know what the biggest job open would be. Maybe he'd be in the mix for for an Auburn Um. Maybe he'd be in the mix for Nebraska. But if I'm Arizona State,

that's a pretty good option because he can recruit. He had a pretty good actor talent um, and he obviously knew how to develop them once they're on campus. So I think somebody like that would be a home run higher if they want to spend the money and want to commit the resources. Well, I started here in last year that Matt Rule wanted to go back to college football.

Cardinals played Carolina next week. But I started hearing that last year, and maybe it was just because at the situation in Carolina he didn't believe in the quarterback and maybe things have changed now that they have Baker. And in terms of Urban, Meyer actually talked to Urban a couple of weeks ago, and first of all, he has no interest in coaching. But the report or the rumor, whatever it was about Arizona State being interested, that was the first he had heard of it. So I don't

see any shot of that. And to your point, Dan Mullen now is doing television. You know you're in the SEC for as long as he was in the SEC in Mississippi State, in Florida and now you're doing TV. Boy, it's a lot more comfortable doing that than it is trying to grind and recruit and try to win over a state. But what you said about USC is really interesting. The departure of SC and UCLA to the Big Ten may ultimately be the best thing that happens to Arizona

State with the expanded playoff. Are you kidding me? I mean, like, if you I'm not listening, there are I don't think. I don't think at all. And you've seen these arguments. I'm sure you've seen them as well. That okay, Well, once Michigan starts making the playoffs every year, they'll get better recruits and all of a sudden they'll close the gap with Georgia. I don't think that's true at all. I think that the Georgia's going to get all of the guys who they want this out and they don't

go to Alabama and vice versa. Right, That's just sort of how it works as long as Kirby and Nick Saban were there. But if you're a team like Arizona State, you can close the gap with a lot of teams. If you start winning the Pact twelve and start getting into the playoffs every single year, and a guy from Phoenix decides to go there instead of going to UCLA or USC or Washington or Oregon or any of these places,

or Texas. I mean, you think about it. I don't know how much you follow recruiting, but Kille Ringo, who had the pick six in the National Championship last year, is from Arizona and I think in a different era he would have gone to USC, Texas somewhere out west if he didn't stay home and go to Arizona State. And so if you just start kind of getting back to more regional recruiting because you can promise consistent playoff appearances,

that changes the entire perspective. And for a team like Arizona State, it only takes one or two recruits to change the entire narrative. Kevin, I appreciate the time. Last thing you mentioned you got Scott van Pell coming up this week on your podcast. What else do you have going on this week and next that we can promote for you? Oh, I'm trying to think. So we have actually just booked a former NFL stars going to come on next week. Forday, it's not one hundred percent of firms,

so I won't say it. Friday we do a pix kind of podcast son of a podcast called Slow Newsday, and it's a video podcast if you have Spotify, if you're on Apple, it's a regular old podcasts. But Mondays we do an NFL recap with Lindsay Jones, who we just hired, who was wonderful smooth from the Athletic. Wednesdays will be the SCP thing this week, and then we'll have with Cowherd on last week as well, and then Friday's we do a one college segment, one pro segment,

just to gets you ready for the weekend. So that day it's called Slow Newsday with Kevin Clark and it's available every get in your podcast. Well this is great, man. I really enjoyed getting a chance to talk to you, Kevin, and hopefully we have to do this in person at some point down the road. Would love it, howe if you're in New York, I appreciate it man. Well. As you can see, Kevin has dialed in not just on the Cardinals, but on all things NFL and college football,

some really good stuff on Arizona State. I wasn't planning, really spent a lot of time there, but I thought what he said about the departure of USC and USA LA to the Big Ten and how that could really transform Arizona State if they find the head coach I thought was really interesting. Along with this, thoughts on the Cardinals, the Rams, Packers, Niners, and some of the other teams in the NFL that could be in contention to win

the Super Bowl. We are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting partner of the Arizona Cardinals, and by Hila River Resorts and Casinos. You can follow us on Twitter at pashpod, and please go to your podcast platform and tell us what to think. If there's any guests that you'd love to see us get on in the future, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks again to Kevin Clark from The Ringer, and thanks again to you for listening to another edition of the Dave Pash Podcast.